


would you really have me in the light of day?

by imaginejolls



Category: Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (TV 2018)
Genre: F/M, Grief/Mourning, Hopeful Ending, Post-Part 4, focusing on what Ambrose is feeling. it gets dark. be warned, no beta we die like men, rebuilding a relationship, reconnecting, this fic deals with the aftermath of the part 4 finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-28
Updated: 2021-01-28
Packaged: 2021-03-14 15:54:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29048745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imaginejolls/pseuds/imaginejolls
Summary: In the aftermath of everything, they find their way back to each other.
Relationships: Prudence Night/Ambrose Spellman
Comments: 5
Kudos: 19





	would you really have me in the light of day?

At first it feels like there is a steep cliff and an infinite abyss in between them. Ambrose looks at Prudence from the other side of the ravine with immense regret and all he can feel in return is Prudence’s anger singeing the back of his neck. So he turns away and buries himself in books instead, at least until the next big catastrophe that requires his attention. It pains him to see Prudence with Nick. Much as it must pain Sabrina to see Nick with Prudence. They suffer it in silence, together.

People will get used to anything. Ambrose would know, he was on house arrest for 75 years. Even this punishment gets less hard the longer it goes on. A little bit, at least. But then Prudence brings up Blackwood, and it feels like a kick to the gut and makes him sore all over again. He figures he deserves it. 

Combating the terrors reminds them both just how well they work together. Ambrose has the knowledge, Prudence the execution; he is sharp, she is unforgiving. Together they are deadly. 

It’s agonizing, this longing for how things were before and knowing they will never be quite the same again. Not after what Ambrose did. This ravine that he keeps looking at Prudence across is his fault, he knows. He will regret it for the rest of his days. But the abyss does seem to diminish with each passing day and brick by brick, a bridge inches over it. Prudence’s anger is less seething now. Ambrose sees it in her eyes less often than he used to. “What’s the fix, Spellman?” she says out loud, but in her head it’s _Ambrose, come quick_.

“What’s wrong?” he asks before the surroundings get back into focus. 

“I need you to look at this.” Prudence’s face is drawn. 

It is not good. Ambrose can tell straight away. The line of Prudence’s mouth is tight, and her eyes show that she is tired, though she tries to hide it and generally hides it well. But Ambrose knows.

“Prudence-” he starts, and Prudence is already dismissing him. Ambrose gives her a hard look. Into the quiet he says: “I wanted to say I’m sorry about Nick.” 

Her smile looks more sad than she probably meant it to. “It was never going to last between us, but it was fun while it lasted.” 

She leaves him with that and hurries off to alert everyone of this new crisis they now have to deal with. Ambrose sighs into the empty room.

When Prudence is spirited away into the Void, everything gets too quiet. Ambrose has never realised before that he was always listening out for her voice. 

The Void itself is eerie. There is no echo nor footsteps. There’s hardly the sound of his voice crying out for her. Sounds carry oddly inside of it. The nothingness of it surrounds him from all sides, suffocating. It would be so easy to fall into despair. Ambrose’s mind is frantic as he screams into the blinding brightness, his voice soon hoarse. And then he hears her. He’s not sure if it’s her voice in his head or outside of it, but Prudence is calling his name, and his feet are quick to follow it.

Ambrose can’t believe that it’s worked. That they’ve all made it out of the Void in one piece, that Nicholas has succeeded in trapping it inside of Pandora’s box, and that the world is not ending today. He can already feel the exhausted glee bubbling up his chest, when his entire world comes crashing down.

The day of the funeral is appropriately bleak. Ambrose goes through the motions of getting dressed: black on black on more black. Aunt Hilda’s made breakfast, but none of them eat. Today they are burying two Sabrinas, one of them sixteen-years-old, the other seventeen. Ambrose holds his breath throughout the ceremony, half-expecting the sky to cave in, or Lucifer to burst through the ground, the world to end. Nothing happens. It doesn’t even start raining. Ambrose feels like it would be appropriate for it to at least start raining. He stands in front of the graves long after everyone’s gone, his legs too heavy to move. He feels like he’s going to die of exhaustion on this very spot and join his cousins sleeping underneath the fresh blanket of dirt. 

Prudence comes back for him. It surprises him, but at the same time he can’t imagine it being anyone else. Her hand is cold and small in his. 

“Come on,” she says, voice soft like the breeze. “Let’s get you something to eat.” 

Ambrose has never dreaded being in the Spellman house more than he does now, not even when he was under house arrest. He helps Aunt Hilda and Dr. Cee pack and move in, but vanishes before she can call him to dinner. At the Academy, Ambrose throws himself into research. Too often his vision goes blurry all of a sudden, and he has to be careful not to spill his tears into the ink on the pages. Prudence keeps him company through it all. At the other side of the table, at the edge of the room, in his head. He can feel her there even when she’s not speaking to him. It’s oddly comforting. Ambrose gets through each day like it’s Purgatory, but every evening he thinks “thank you” and Prudence’s presence is warm and silent at the edge of his consciousness. 

It starts being a little easier. A little less unbearable, but still incomprehensible. Ambrose keeps expecting to run into Sabrina at the house and when he remembers that it’s never going to happen again, it feels like being punched into the heart. And then Nick goes missing. 

Ambrose finds Prudence at the steps of the Academy. She sits as still as a statue while the dusk falls around her, shrouding everything in timid darkness. Ambrose’s stomach is heavy with dread. Prudence looks up at him, not crying, but her eyes are tender. 

“Nick’s dead,” she says. She sounds so tired. As tired as Ambrose’s been feeling these past few weeks. Prudence knows grief more than he does -- she’s mourned her sister twice. Mourned her mother even longer.

“I know.” 

The fact weighs down on him impossibly, and Ambrose sits down under the very weight of it. Prudence leans into him and, when he puts an arm around her shoulders, doesn’t protest.

They spend the night together in Prudence’s rooms at the Academy. The silence that falls between them is not awkward at all; it is familiar and comforting, almost like a hug. Ambrose wants to insist on sleeping on the floor, but Prudence’s eyes pull on his body until he slips into her bed, and her limbs curl around him like snakes. He dreams of the Mountains of Madness. The emptiness of the Void, trapped, surrounded by nothing but helplessness, and then he realises it’s not his own dream, but Prudence’s, or both of theirs, somehow. Prudence weeps in the dream. Her tears flood the space until suddenly they are drowning, the salty water merciless in their throats, holding them by the ankles and sinking them deeper. _Oh_ , Ambrose thinks, _so this is how he went_.

When Ambrose wakes up it’s still dark outside. He turns his head and finds Prudence looking at him with such familiar intensity in her eyes that he doesn’t even flinch when she moves to kiss him. Her body is no stranger to his, and the past experiences take over. Over all, the sex is unremarkable. Prudence doesn’t come, and Ambrose finishes himself off with a couple of determined strokes. He’s out of her room before dawn.

Soon he has a new routine in place: avoid the house as much as possible, spend his days holed up in the library, wander about the woods. It’s there that Prudence appears out of thin air behind him. Ambrose is much too attuned to her to act surprised. 

“I’ve been thinking,” he says before she starts, “of going back to England.”

A thoughtful silence. Prudence falls into step next to him on the winding path. 

“For how long?” she asks at last.

All Ambrose gives her in lieu of an answer is a long look. 

“Right, then. When do you want to leave?” There’s something in her tone that makes Ambrose stop and wonder whether she is insinuating what he thinks she’s insinuating.

“You mean you would like to go with me?” he asks, incredulous. 

“Well, of course. Somebody needs to make sure you don’t turn into a hermit in the mountains somewhere.

Taking the plane is an odd comfort. They’re flying over night, so the plane isn’t too full, and they are pretty lucky that their immediate neighbour on Ambrose’s right is a quiet sleeper. The hum of the engines is steady, and there is safety in being surrounded by people. Prudence fights the drowsiness for a while, thinking at Ambrose rather than vocalising it, but she succumbs to sleep two hours into the flight. Her head is pillowed on Ambrose’s shoulder. She’s all curled up, knees tucked to her chest, and she looks almost vulnerable. Without her make-up on she looks a lot younger, too. Ambrose wonders what made her want to come back to Englad with him, considering what happened last time they were on the island. What’s happened cannot be undone. He hopes, desperately, that he will provide plenty of opportunities to rewrite those painful memories with happier ones. 

He can see the bottom of the ravine now. The bridge arches proudly over it, and while it may crumble again, it holds for now. And Prudence meets him in the middle of it. Perhaps this whole vacation business is just her way of saying that their joint efforts in rebuilding what was once between them hasn’t been in vain. Ambrose hopes so, anyway. 

Prudence stirs then, and when she looks up at him with a sleepy smile, Ambrose offers her his hand. Her fingers slot between his own neatly. Maybe this is what forgiveness feels like.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading. i'm hoping to write something Explicit-rated with a much happier overall mood at some point in the near future


End file.
